Why James Murdoch was wrong to attack the British Library

In a speech last night, the News International chief took the library to task for providing access to digital material. He began:

Take the current controversy over the library's intention to provide unrestricted access to digital material.

What controversy? There is no controversy as far as the library, the public, thousands of academics and hundreds of working journalists - the seekers after knowledge - are concerned.

They welcome the "unrestricted access to digital material" just as they have enjoyed, for years, the access to printed material. And this, incidentally, has sometimes been restricted due to the deterioration of newsprint, a fact that the digitisation process will overcome.

This public service is anathema to both James and Rupert Murdoch who view it as as some form of unfair competition to commercial publishers, like them, who originally produced the material. James finds it unacceptable that the library "is not driven by a bottom line" and demands that "public bodies should be restrained from crowding out productive investment."

Having previously taken a routine swipe at "profitable" search engines (without mentioning Google by name), he continued:

Like the search business, but motivated by different concerns, the public sector interest is to distribute content for near-zero cost - harming the market in so doing, and then justifying increased subsidies to make up for the damage it has inflicted.

Well, the library's concerns are motivated by public need and the public right to know. In that context, allowing the public to have as unrestricted access as possible to knowledge, appears reasonable.

Then came another broadside following yesterday's announcement - recorded on this blog - that the library is to digitise 40m pages of content from its archive old newspapers.

This was material, said Murdoch, that was originally given to the library by publishers "as a matter of legal obligation." He went on:

This is not simply being done for posterity, nor to make free access for library users easier, but also for commercial gain via a paid‐for website. The move is strongly opposed by major publishers.

If it goes ahead, free content would not only be a justification for more funding, but actually become a source of funds for a public body.

We do not know how much the library will charge as yet. But we do know that the digitisation project will cost a great many millions. It seems perfectly reasonable for the library to recoup some of that through a charge (even though one would rather it was free).

The Murdochs' argument illustrates not only the philosophical divide between the commercial and public service sectors but also, increasingly, a practical clash between them. (His objection to the library also echoes his, and his company's, antagonism towards the BBC).

While we can grasp the importance of copyright as a protection for the individual creator of unique content, how do we feel about offering the same protection to a profit-seeking global publisher?

Rightly, you might point out that funding provided by the publisher enables a collection of individuals to create unique content and that they deserve protection for their work. It is therefore reasonable for the publisher to recover its outlay by charging for access to that content.

In terms of archive material, especially stretching back to the dawn of newspaper time - to 1785 in the case of The Times, for example - what is a reasonable return for the publisher (who, incidentally, no longer exists)?

Moreover, the advent of digital technology prompts a set of new questions about current material. Most importantly, what is unique? Not a news scoop, for certain, and not even a news analysis.

This may well be unfair, especially seen from the perspective of commerce, and it is also true that it represents a threat to the kind of journalistic systems created by newspaper publishers for about the last 150 years.

We all agree that journalism costs money. What is at issue is whether it is viable any longer to fund an essentially 20th century journalistic system in a digital world.

The Murdochs, though fully aware of the gradual erosion of print and the inevitability of it being supplanted by online journalism (witness their positive views of the iPad), wish to fuse the old with the new.

In a commercial context, their arguments are perfectly rational. As Murdoch said in his speech "journalism was the making of News Corporation." It provided the funds in those good old days of bumper print profits that allowed the company to become a multi-media conglomerate.

The Murdochs cannot countenance letting that go. They want everything to stay the same. Here's James again: "We are one of the largest employers of journalists and editors, and maintain an incomparable range of foreign correspondents, contributors and bureaux in all sorts of places."

That's terrific. Or, at least, it was terrific. To use the commercial phrase, it is no longer a sustainable business model. The net offers a new way to do journalism, an arguably better form of journalism and one that can be funded adequately.

For years I have seen Rupert Murdoch as a media visionary (and taken some heat for it from his many detractors). But he, and his son, now have their feet planted firmly in history's quicksand.

The digital revolution, as I've written often before, sweeps all before it. A new, more transparent, more accountable and freer form of journalism is on its way. Even News Corp can't stop it.